


Still of the Night

by merrimacmines



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF, Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: 1950s, 1950s Slang, Age Difference, Alternate Universe - 1950s, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Boys In Love, Boys Kissing, Drama & Romance, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, First Time, First Time Blow Jobs, First Time Bottoming, Gay, Gay Male Character, Gay Romance, Gay Sex, Historical References, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Masturbation, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV First Person, eight years, historical gay romance, m/m romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-18 19:53:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29123718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merrimacmines/pseuds/merrimacmines
Summary: In the summer of 1958, bookish and nerdy nineteen-year-old Timmy notices his aunt's mysterious neighbor - a motorcycle-riding, cigarette-smoking and oh-so-handsome loner.And the handsome loner notices him back.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Switches between Timmy POV/Armie POV============================================================================M/M Romance | Explicit Sexual Content | Trigger warnings in some chapters | Next update: 3/21============================================================================Thank you for reading!__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________***Now also on Wattpad***
Relationships: Timothée Chalamet/Armie Hammer
Comments: 231
Kudos: 144





	1. Timmy

A breeze comes through and makes the pages of my book curl.

It’s an already-battered book, with dog-eared pages and a torn back cover that I pasted together seven months ago. It might need more. I used to carry it with me everywhere, thinking I’d need some comfort, some escape. I smooth out the pages as best I can and keep one eye on the sun making its arc through the western sky.

It’s the time of day when Aunt Amy’s dresses and underthings have dried on the line and the fresh scent carries over in the breeze. The day is old and hot and there’s supper-time smells in the air. It’s perfect. As perfect as anything can be in my life, which is nothing really, and I turn in the lawn chair just enough so I can see without being seen. My secrets begin and end with the arc of the sun.

“Timmy,” Aunt Amy calls. In my periphery I see her coming out onto the patio with a basket, her bare feet swishing in the grass. “Are you really reading that book again?”

I glance over at the apartment building just behind the fence. It’s a square brick building with exactly four apartments. The two on the bottom have sliding doors and a patio and the top two have sliding doors and balconies of concrete and metal railings. A gravel alleyway separates Aunt Amy’s fence from the apartment building’s pathetic yard.

My fingers tighten around the book cover. “Mom liked this book.” I glance over at Aunt Amy and her expression goes solemn. I feel a pinch of guilt.

“I see,” she replies, forcing her voice to sound light. She begins removing clothes from the line. At the end, in a little collection, are my own clothes, dried and swaying. I sit up in horror at the thought of my underpants swaying about like a flag. I look up at the apartment building, relieved there’s no one outside to see.

Especially not him.

From where I sit, behind the brown wooden fence, I can see that the bottom right apartment looks empty. I’ve peeked through a slit in the wood and there’s nothing on the patio. No chairs or ashtray. But there’s a frayed looking rug just by the doors and sometimes there’s a light on inside. I’m guessing it’s an old man who doesn’t want to be bothered. Widowed and alone, suburbia lives and thrives while his golden years pass him by. And he’d just prefer it that way.

Aunt Amy puts the clothespins in her apron. “Maybe we’ll have dinner out on the patio this evening. If the weather holds up.” She glances towards the south where there’s some threatening clouds rolling in.

The bottom left apartment has a married (maybe?) couple and some kids. I don’t know how many, but a dolly has been sitting next to the ashtray for a couple of months now. The hair is frayed, the face dirty, and every so often a lady with curlers in her hair and wearing a mint green robe sits out on the patio with a pack if Chesterfields. Sometimes a guy yells from the inside or a kid shrieks like a banshee.

“What do you want for dinner?” Aunt Amy starts pulling down my clothes. My shoulders relax.

“I dunno,” I reply absently.

The top right apartment has two girls. They look about my age, but I’m not so sure. They don’t come out much. For a while, one of them would come out to smoke and lean over the balcony rail, her hair up in a scarf. It always seemed like she was looking for someone down below. Romeo come to serenade her at last.

“I could get us a pizza pie,” Aunt Amy offers.

I shrug my shoulders and my gaze zeros in on the top left apartment, and by design, the furthest apartment from me. I always hear his Triumph first, the sound of the motor breaking up the birds and dog barks in the neighborhood. He must park it in the front of the building somewhere, because I’ve never actually seen it. From the time the motor cuts off to when he appears on the balcony with a can of Pabst and a Lucky Strike is anywhere from ten to fifteen minutes. I imagine my ears perking up like Bugs Bunny in anticipation.

“Well, I’ll fix us steak then,” Aunt Amy decides, folding the last pair of pants from the line into the basket. “Steak and those little new potatoes. I’ll roast them, and I made a cake for dessert. You’d like that, right?”

I nod. It’s no different from what we have for dinner every night: meat and potatoes. Sometimes there’s ice cream instead of a cake. Sometimes Aunt Amy burns the meat. Sometimes she over-salts the potatoes. I can’t really hold it against her. Out of all my father’s sisters, she remains the only one unmarried. She isn’t used to cooking for anyone but herself.

As she picks up the basket and turns to me, I hear it. A distant roar, a _vroom vroom_ that bucks and canters as it gets closer, and I close my eyes and try to picture him riding it. Five hundred pounds of steel between his legs, denim and leather, and the wind effortlessly blowing past his slicked back hair.

“Timmy?”

I open my eyes and _Les Miserables_ slips out of my hands and onto the grass. “Yeah?”

I glance over at her, and she’s got one eyebrow raised in disapproval.

“Sorry. I’m sorry. I meant yes?”

“That’s better.” She tilts her head at me, and her eyes look down at the book. “Maybe you should consider going for a walk or something. It’s a nice afternoon.”

I shrug and fiddle with the thick worn paperback. The engine draws closer until I know it’s right in front of the apartment house, right out of my sight. It cuts off.

“Maybe later,” I reply.

Aunt Amy gives me another eyebrow raise. I didn’t use to read outside, or just go outside in general, but she insisted. Saying what a lovely spring it had been and the summer just as nice and I should get outdoors. It would be good for me, she said. She was gentle about it at first and allowed me to wallow alone in the guest room with my comics and _Les Miserables_ , keeping the perfect company. But she pressed the issue one morning at breakfast, her hair curlers falling out, her lips without color, and then she cleaned up the lawn chair and a little table and set it up. I didn’t have a choice but to go outside then.

I’m worried she’s going to keep talking, and I’ll lose track of the time. I won’t see him come out. I won’t be able to get to my spot between the shrubs and the fence, where I can watch him undetected. But Aunt Amy says nothing more. She goes inside with the laundry basket, I wait a beat or two, and slink over to my hiding place.

* * *

I guess I have Aunt Amy to thank for this.

Or curse.

Whichever.

Because I first noticed him two days after she’d made me read outside. I sat in the lawn chair, waving away a fly from the rim of my glasses, and I glanced up. He sat on a stained wooden chair on the balcony, hunched over, the smoke from his cigarette curling upwards. His T-shirt was bleached white, sleeves rolled up against biceps that clenched and rippled as he sat back. His hair, heavy with pomade, framed a face that all at once appeared nonchalant, disinterested, and haunted.

His eyes glanced over to me, and I’d quickly crouched down by the fence out of his line of sight. In my head I decided to call him Blue, because I was sure - and I’m still sure - that’s the color of his eyes. I’m never close enough to see, but that’s what they look like to me. A crystal blue; azure prisms of light.

And I wondered if he was more like Javert or Jean Valjean. I wondered if he had taken a new identity to hide his past or if he were harsh and exacting in all things. But then I felt like he was the Cosette to my Marius; a mystery for me to unfold, enamored and pining, only I’d never be brave enough to search for him if he were ever lost to me.

* * *

At exactly five-fifteen, the doors to his balcony slide open and Blue steps out.

Today he wears another bleached-white T-shirt, a pack of Lucky’s rolled up in the right sleeve. No, left sleeve. His left. His denim pants are dark, the cuffs folded up over black work boots, reminiscent of a factory, a mechanic. Sometimes he wears this short-sleeved plaid over the T-shirt, the buttons unbuttoned, and I’d die if there were no T-shirt underneath.

He lights a cigarette and drinks from a can of beer. Sometimes he brings out one can. Sometimes two. I’ve tried to figure out if there’s a pattern, a reason, an order Javert would inflict. But there doesn’t seem to be a reason at all. Just what he feels like. Blue often stares out as he smokes and drinks, it’s all leisurely, and I suppose it’s how he relaxes. He never seems to notice if dogs start barking or if the kid downstairs starts wailing. His eyes gaze across the rooftops, up to the sky, into a distance only known to him.

I’m safe in my spot and there’s just enough room between the shrub and fence for me to sit cross-legged. Sometimes the smoke from his cigarettes waft over this way, depends on the breeze and how long he sits. I like to watch his hand-to-mouth, his lips pucker around the filter, and the occasional glisten of moisture on his bottom lip from the beer. I imagine the tip of my tongue licking it up. I imagine those eyes staring into mine as he returns the favor.

I feel an erection beginning and try to think of something else, so I don’t have to run inside hunched over like some virgin; even though I am, but I can pretend. I’m good at distorting reality.

Blue must work somewhere dirty. I see it, faint, around his fingernails. Motor oil? Dirt? Grease? I picture him in coveralls, covered in black oil, pushing out from underneath a Cadillac. I imagine him telling the square businessman just how much it’s going to cost him to fix that leak. And the square complains, his suit and tie too straight, and Blue is just too cool to give a damn. He’s Thènardier, just can’t be bothered, lighting up a Lucky, and blowing smoke in the old fella’s face.

But I don’t want him to be Thènardier, so I go back to Marius and Cosette and wish it was the other way around. Or worse: I’m Éponine and I’ll die with his name on my lips.

_Blue…_

* * *

At six-oh-four, two beers and nine cigarettes later, he goes inside.

I’m left to wonder what happens then. I guess that he’s in the shower, washing away the day. The parts of him I don’t see, just under those clothes, I have to create it all in my own mind. I imagine his chest hair is a shade darker than the hair on his head. I imagine there’s a trail of it from his navel to his cock, and it’s huge and it just has to be. It’s got to be. Maybe he touches it and it hardens, flushing red, and standing upright against his belly. Maybe he jerks himself in the shower and comes on the tile so it just washes away and there’s no evidence. No one would know. He gets out with a towel around his waist and I bet he smells like Ivory and spice. He’s gasoline in the summer heat, bed sheets damp, and eyelids fluttering through his dreams.

“Timmy!”

I’m pulled from my otherworldly musings by Aunt Amy’s shrill. My dick deflates, and I stand up from behind the shrub. She’s in the patio doorway wearing the exact apron my mother made for her, the smell of marinade floating out from the kitchen behind her.

“What are you doing?” She asks.

“I thought I saw a bird’s nest.” I stick my hands in my pockets and make fists. I walk inside the house, right past her, to join her for dinner.

* * *

It isn’t so bad this evening.

The steak is tender, the potatoes crisp, and the cake tempting from the stand on the counter. I can tell Aunt Amy is used to eating alone, because it’s like she has to remember I’m there. To ask me things. I’d rather she didn’t ask me things, but I feel as if I have to go along with it. She didn’t have to take me in.

In between bites of steak and the cry of kids’ laughter a few doors down, she glances at me and I pretend not to notice. It’s clear she’s got something to say. Last time I came to stay with her was when I was thirteen and my mother couldn’t get out of bed. No one would tell me why, but the glimpse I caught of her one morning as pops helped her to the bathroom told me everything I needed to know. She was far too skinny, her knees knobby, and her skin yellowish. I figured they’d sent me to Aunt Amy’s so my mother could die in secret; they didn’t want me to see it. But two months later, the day before I started eighth grade, I went home and there was a doctor at her bedside. She was still too skinny, but her skin looked normal, rosy.

She reached out her arms and embraced me for the first time in months. I didn’t like how I could feel her shoulder blades, her ribs. Pops came in, told me to get up to my room, and shut the door behind me. She was okay for a while after that. Gained some weight, and went to the beauty parlor. Then one day after school when I was a sophomore, I went into my bedroom to find my shirts hanging in the closet and ironed, rather than folded neatly on my bed to put away myself. I met our new housekeeper, Lola, and she made us a roast while my mother sat at the kitchen counter in her robe, sipping tea. Her smile was tired, and her eyes sagging.

My mother would get better, then she would get worse, then better. On and on, a carnival ride with twists and turns, and I got so tired of it. I wanted something to stay the same. I wanted it all to just be over.

And then one day I got my wish.

“Your father called,” Aunt Amy says. She puts her fork down and dabs at her mouth with an embroidered napkin.

I take a long pull from the glass of milk Aunt Amy makes sure is there breakfast, lunch, and dinner like I’m twelve.

“I think you should talk to him,” she ventures, giving me a sidelong glance. “He just didn’t seem like himself.”

“Good,” I mutter, rolling a potato around on my plate with the fork. Like I’m twelve.

“It’ll be good for you two to talk.” She takes another bite and drinks her wine. “Just talk, Timmy. That’s all you have to do.”

I stare at her. She looks like my dad, but not in a good way. She’s a mannish kind of woman, and my grandmother used to tell her so every day of her life. She has my dad’s thick jawline and brow. She tries to disguise both with makeup and distract with false lashes, and the reddest of red lips. She curls her hair in a way that softens her features, but she’s so broad and tall. If I think about it for a while, I feel sorry for her, being left behind like this. No man to love or cherish her. I think of her like Fantine, but without a little girl hidden away somewhere. Or at least, not that I know of.

She’s still my father’s sister, though; she has his pushiness and his attitude when I don’t eat everything on my plate. It’s like she’s forgotten I’m nineteen and _not twelve._

“Maybe…around nine o’clock?” She tilts her head at me. “You can use the phone in the parlor. For privacy.”

I don’t know why she calls it a parlor. Her house isn’t big enough for something so fancy. I look down at my half-empty plate, suddenly full. “Not tonight.”

“Tomorrow.”

“No.”

“Timmy.”

She reaches across the table for my hand, and I take both and put them in my lap. She clears her throat and withdraws her hand. She dabs at her lips again with the napkin, leaving red marks.

“You know, Timmy,” she reaches for my plate and takes it, goes over to the sink, “the only way someone can apologize to you is if you let them.”

I look out the sliding glass doors at the dusk. There’s a light on in Blue’s window. The kind of white brash light they put in apartment kitchens, a string you pull over the sink. I think he eats his supper the same time we do. I expect it’s something manly, like roast beef or ham. More beer and cigarettes. Maybe he listens to the radio or the television. I imagine him at a tiny kitchen table, off-white with cigarette burns, a metal mismatching chair, waiting to hear the score from the game. Any game.

I decide I should see if Aunt Amy has any encyclopedias on her bookshelf so I can learn about baseball or something with a ball. The one time I had to in school, I broke my glasses sliding into second base. No one cared, and I couldn’t see the rest of the day.

“I think I’m going to go read,” I say, standing up from the table.

“You don’t want cake?” Aunt Amy says mildly, scraping my leftovers in the sink.

“Maybe later.”

I’m at the kitchen door when she stops me. I turn and she puts her hands on my shoulders, her big man-hands, and I’m surprised to feel tears sting my eyes. I wait for her to say it, because I know she wants to say it: _He didn’t mean it, Timmy. He’s so sorry, Timmy. Just forgive him. He swears he’ll never do it again._

For once, I just want someone to be on my side. My defender.

She looks at me for a long while, then lets me go. She turns back to the sink. “Enjoy your reading, Timmy.”

I take off like a bullet to my room, her guest room, and flop down on the quilt. I take off my glasses and bury my wet face in the pillow until it’s too dark to see anything.

* * *

Blue’s had about three cigarettes and it’s just the one beer.

I twist blades of grass together between my thumb and forefinger as I gaze up at him. He could be a King surveying his lands. _The_ King. Elvis, gyrating his hips and caressing and crooning into a microphone. And I don’t know why Elvis is a king anyway. I think they just call him that because of his last picture, which I never saw and I don’t plan to. He’s never really caught my attention anyway.

I found my mother’s Valentino collection when I was a freshman. She was at the hospital again, no one was home, and I had nothing better to do. I don’t know what it was. His eyes, maybe, like he could see all my secrets and know me through and through, all memorialized in sepia. It was unnerving in a way I hadn’t experienced before. Then the community theater showed all his old films one summer. I watched _A Sainted Devil_ and couldn’t catch my breath. I went home in flames. All the way home and into my bedroom, where I locked my bedroom door, and touched myself, not for the first time, but for the most desperate time. And I _was_ desperate, heated and panting, until I came all over my pants and my hand. And looking at it, thick and milky-white on my skin and clothes, I suppose that just cemented it in fact, made it real: I’m different, a strange one, and I can’t ever tell a soul.

I got obsessed with men who I thought might be like me, mostly fictional. I think Javert was like me. What was it with him and Valjean? It couldn’t simply have been that Valjean was a criminal or changed his identity. It was more, I think. It’s easy to hate someone you’re not suppose to love, and let their mercy kill you at last.

So, I have to wonder: if Blue showed me mercy, for any reason, would it kill me?

I glance up at him again and this time he’s not where I’m expecting him. He’s moved. He’s standing now at the corner of the balcony, leaning over the black metal railing, cigarette at the corner of his lips.

And looking right at me.

Right. At. Me.

I dive under the shrub.

“Hey,” he calls.

I hug my knees to my chest, try to curl into a ball, but I’m too tall and my feet stick out.

“Hey, kid. I can see you.” His voice is smooth, even. “Come on out.”

My face burns. It burns for being caught, for being called “kid,” and for hearing his voice for the very first time. God, I want to hear it everyday.

“Hey,” He calls again.

I peek out from under the shrub and he’s staring down at me, his eyes sharp but his expression amused.

“Come over here,” he says simply.

I swallow. “Huh?” My voice cracks.

“2B.” He nods to the front of the building. “Come on.”

My heart races like a prized horse at the derby. Half of me wants to pretend I didn’t hear him and the other half is ready scramble over the fence like a spider and sprint to his door. I hesitate.

One corner of his lips pulls into a semi-smile. “Just come on. It’s okay.”

“I’m s-sorry. I- I’m really s-sorry,” I stammer out.

He rolls his eyes, puts out his cigarette. “I’ll meet you at the door.” Then he goes inside and the door clicks. Just this _click_ as it slides shut.

It echoes in my ears for a handful of seconds. And then I get up, brush grass off my pants, and leave my discovered spot. I find the gate and open it, close it, make my way across the alley and right to Blue’s front door.


	2. Armie

_What in the hell am I supposed to do with this kid?_

I mutter it to myself as I go open the door. I don’t have time for this. Whatever _this_ is, I don’t have time for it, but I need to put a stop to it, and so I open the door, ready with a remark, something good, something lecturing, when I see he’s not really a kid after all. Definitely younger than me, but not a kid.

He’s tall, thin, light stubble on his chin, and behind black-framed glasses there’s wide mossy-green eyes looking up at me. It puts me off for a moment; my bravado almost draining like a tub. And he’s dressed directly from the Sears Roebuck with a collared shirt, ironed and smooth, tucked neatly into his slacks, also ironed and smooth. For a second there, I want to laugh.

His thick curly hair, clipped above his ears, I saw all those times I guess he thought he was hiding from me. Did he seriously think I couldn’t see him? I saw him weeks ago, puttering around in my neighbor’s yard, and then later that evening reading in a lawn chair. And like two days after that I saw someone moving in a shrub by the fence and realized they were the same person. Watching me. Spying.

It gets me irritated all over again, and I open my mouth to say so, but he opens his instead.

“I’m really sorry.” He looks down and pushes up his glasses. “I was just bored and being stupid. I’m so sorry.” His shoulders slump. “Please don’t tell my Aunt.”

I don’t know what to say for a second. The irritation fades as I see a flush of sheer embarrassment bloom on his cheeks. And then he looks up at me with big puppy eyes and there’s just something about him right then, something that makes me want to cover him, protect him, give him shelter from the storm. I’m not the first man he’s had to apologize to. I’m not the first he’s had to swallow his pride for.

There’s a soft flutter in my chest. I clear my throat to push it away, but it’s loud and it makes him jump.

I push my door all the way open and gesture. “Come on in.”

His cheeks flush deeper and he hesitates.

“It’s cool.” I gesture again. “Come in for a minute.”

He peers curiously past me, and sort of side-steps inside, like I might reach out and snatch his throat. This won’t do. I don’t want him to be afraid of me.

But I guess yelling at him from the balcony didn’t help. Just what in the hell was I supposed to do anyway? I couldn’t ignore him anymore, blatantly watching me, the sun reflecting off his glasses, and did he really, _seriously_ think I had no idea? I can’t be sure if it was every evening. If the clouds roll in, it casts the entire yard in shadow, especially by the fence. It was often enough, though. I know that. Often enough to be disconcerting, at the very least.

I go to the icebox and get two beers. I almost toss one to him, but I take a look at his hunched shoulders, fists jammed in his pockets, doing everything he can to not look at me directly, and I think better of it. I sit on the sofa and slide the can across the coffee table to him. But he doesn’t reach down in time to catch it and it knocks my ashtray to the floor, ashes covering the shitty rug I found at a second-hand shop.

“Sorry! I’m sorry!” He kneels down to pick everything up.

“Don’t worry about it.” I wave him up. “Just leave it. I’ll get it later.” I crack open my beer.

He doesn’t move for a second, just standing there in my tiny sitting room, awkwardly holding the beer and ashtray. I wonder if he’s even had a beer before. He absolutely looks like the kind of fella who doesn’t drink beer. Or anything except milk and maybe the occasional soda pop.

He puts the ashtray back on the table and sits down on another shitty second hand piece, the arm chair, and he’s perched on the edge like a nervous bird. I watch him for a minute or two. He’s outright refusing to look at me, so I sigh and speak first.

“Can I ask why?”

He swallows. Shakes his head. “I don’t know.” He holds the can of beer in his hands like a candle at a vigil. “I’m just so sorry. I didn’t think you could see me.”

I want to challenge him on it. Ask why he thought being hidden would make a difference, since he was _watching_ me like some kind of Communist witch-hunter. And he looks like he could be exactly that, let me tell you. He looks like his mother dresses him, and he’ll probably live at home well past thirty.

And yet…

There’s an itch inside me, a desire awakening that I try again and again to put to sleep. I think of it as the horse charging towards me as a child, and my savior, my older brother, only put himself in harm’s way to save me. I’ll never forget the screams or the blood. I’ll never forget the emptiness at knowing that I could never be grateful, but only angry. He’d forced this loss on me, and what good did it do?

And so I took that emptiness and that unwanted desire and just meshed the two together; made them one creature for me to deal with. This desire has hooves that pound into the ground like a hammer on an anvil. I hear it in the deepest and darkest of my dreams until it’s sprouted two heads, and I can’t ignore it anymore. My hand with the beer begins to shake. I take a sip and catch the kid in my periphery, watching me. When I look directly at him, he looks directly away. He only likes to look when I’m not.

“You shouldn’t be doing stuff like that around here, pal,” I say to him. “Not too many people like peeping toms.”

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, mostly to the ashes on the shitty rug. “I won’t do it again. I swear. Please just don’t say anything to my Aunt.” He bites his lower lip.

I don’t like the distress in his voice. I don’t like how he won’t look at me directly. I don’t like how I started all this by dissolving the unspoken fantasy between us. It’s so stupid, so ridiculous, because in every way he owes _me_ the apology, but now I feel guilty for some inexplicable reason. I feel like I owe _him_.

I sit back on the sofa and consider something. And I shouldn’t. Absolutely not at all. “How about this,” I look over at him and wait patiently until he looks back. “Got a Triumph out front. Could use a wash and a polish. If you can do that, we can forget the whole thing.”

He just stares at me, and I can’t tell if he’s confused or what. “It’s the bike.” I nod to the front window. “Right out there.”

“I know what it is.” He looks almost insulted.

“Okay, well. What do you say? Tomorrow’s Saturday, so be here at ten?”

A slight flush appears on his neck, just below his Adam’s apple. I damn the flutter in my chest all the way to hell.

“All right,” he agrees.

I sit back and light a cigarette, all done deal, but there’s silence for a minute or so, before he stands up, and pushes his glasses up his nose.

“Can I go now?”

I shrug like I could give a shit.

He turns to the door and exits without a word.

I sit for a long time after he’s gone, my already-dim sitting room getting dimmer, my lungs filling and emptying as I finish and light another cigarette. I go pick up the unopened beer and it’s warm where he gripped it for dear life and he lingers in a way I don’t want him to. In a way I can imagine him breathless. In a way that I can leave him with his shirt untucked, get him all wrinkled and unzipped, and at the mercy of my lips. I sit back down, sink deeper and deeper into the sofa cushions, my cock twitching in my pants and my mind swirling with the fury that someone like him can do this to me. Now. Here.

The nerve.

The fucking _nerve_.

“Knock it off,” I say to myself. I stand and shake it off and go find one of my girly magazines.

But first a shower, and I turn on the water.

Cold.

* * *

He’s waiting by my bike at ten sharp.

Another collared shirt, with maroon and white stripes, tucked into gray slacks. His hair is combed behind his ears, not a curl out of place, and his shoes shined.

“What’s so funny?” He frowns at me as I approach.

“You know you’re just gonna get dirty, right?”

He looks down at himself and frowns deeper, that endearing blush appearing once more. My heart hiccups.

I shake my head. “It’s cool, though. I guess I should’ve told you. I haven’t cleaned the garage in ages.”

“Garage?”

“Yeah.” I fasten the snaps on my leather jacket, bought and paid for at the fanciest store downtown. It’s genuine and a deep ebony and if there was anyone that needed to know, I’d request they make sure I’m buried in it. “Did you think you were going to do it out here?” I gesture around us. “See a hose anywhere?”

He looks. “Well, no. But —”

“Come on.” I go around to the street side and mount my bike.

I bought the Triumph off some asshole in the neighboring county. He had two, brand new, one was red, and I hate red. He really wanted to unload the red one, though, so I haggled and bargained until I bought it for fifty clams off the asking price. I painted it black the following week. I wanted something that wasn’t too cumbersome. At least until I can move out to the country, just a log cabin and some records, and I’ll be golden. The thudding of the horses hooves fading into oblivion at last.

I cut on the engine, push up the kick with my heel, and look over at him. He’s chewing on his bottom lip, looking like he might just run on back to his Auntie’s.

I try to gather up some sympathy for him. He’s got to be lonely. There’s no one around his age in this neighborhood. Or mine for that matter. Or - scratch that - no one my age and also a forever bachelor because there’s no way he can cure the sickness in his heart. And marrying some dame to quell the thirst will only make me hungry. I can’t be so low as to fool someone I’ll never love.

“Hop on,” I say to him. There’s just enough room on the seat behind me, and he’ll be the first to ever ride with me. On this bike anyway.

“I’ve never ridden on a motorcycle before,” he says warily.

“Just hop on and hold on.” I rev the engine and try to give him a reassuring smile.

And then he gets on, and I feel the heft of him on the seat behind me. There’s a handlebar behind him to grip, but I feel his hesitant hands on either side of my waist. Before I can think about it too much, I hit the gas and we’re off, his grip tightening as we speed away.

The garage is only a couple of miles from my apartment, but it seems to take longer than usual. My awareness of him behind me is enhanced with every bump and turn, his thighs touching, his hands gripping tight, and I wonder things, I think things that should be left in my Pandora’s box of shame. At an intersection, I stop short - unnecessarily - so his chest bumps against my back. He’s hard under that thin frame, and I could’ve let him hide in shadows, watching me for all time, if he’d just touch me like this. Just sometimes. Just like this. It’s all I need.

And it’s all I can ever have.

* * *

I snap the padlock open and lift the door.

Inside is the baby blue Impala I’ve been repairing for this ass who needs it for his beauty queen daughter to sit in. She’s Queen of the Dogwood Festival at the high school. There’s a joke in there somewhere that I’m still working on. But I’ve got the thing like, maybe half done. And then there’s the 1924 Rolls Royce I’ve been restoring on the side for this rich guy. Seriously, that square’s really got the dough. The Royce is just one of like six he’s got in a garage I could only dream of.

I go inside to the workstation and take off my jacket, hang it up. The kid’s standing just outside in the sun, squinting into the dim garage as if he’s looking for something in particular. I cut on the overhead light and start gathering up some polish and rags.

“What’s your name?” I call over to him.

He takes a step inside, takes his hands out of his pockets, then puts them back in. “Tim. Timmy. Uh, Timmy…if it’s like family. So. Tim. Just call me Tim.”

“Tim?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. _Tim_.” I stick some brushes in a bucket with the other junk and hand it over to him. “Have at it, pal.”

He takes the bucket from me and stares at it for a long moment.

I sigh. “Here.” I go over to the bench and find some coveralls for him. I go outside and cut on the hose, walk the bike to the front so the water goes in the drain, and he still looks lost.

So, I get him to put the coveralls on, to protect his clothes. It’s just long enough for his height, but hangs around his middle. I show him how to use the hose on the wheels but to be careful of the leather seat. I show him how to polish the chrome and remove any build up with the edge of a penny. I tell him to rub wax on the seat until it’s soft as kid and shining like new. And, honestly, I could’ve just done it all myself from how much time I had to spend explaining.

And, honestly, watching his interest pique, watching his eyes the color of rolling lush pastures settle on mine, watching him do something he’s clearly never done before…honestly? I don’t know if I would have wanted it any other way.

* * *

It’s after one and I’m hungry.

The sun has mostly dried the tires on the Triumph, but he’s wiping them down anyway, carefully, looking through water stains on his glasses.

The King Tut Drive-In is just up the street. I grab the keys for the Impala, tell him to come on, and jump in. I had to remove the convertible top to fix part of the windshield. The ass was driving drunk and plowed right through some farmer’s garden. A flower pot hit the windshield. That’s the story he gave me anyway.

Tim strips from his coveralls and opens the door. “Is this yours?”

“Nope.”

I start the engine, and I take us up the street. The teeny-bopper blond on skates grins and giggles at us more than necessary, and I shift my gaze to see how Tim reacts. I hate to admit I’m hopeful when he doesn’t seem to notice her beyond: “I’d like some French fries and Coke, please.”

I shake my head at myself. Why should there be any hope for me at all? Gazing up at me from behind a shrub.

Blondie brings us our food and we eat in silence for a bit. About two cars over are some kids turning up “The Stroll” on their crappy Chrysler. They get out and split into two lines right there in the parking lot, car hops skating around them, laughing. It’s strange to see something like that, know it was never a scene from your own life, and yet miss it anyway.

Tim wipes his fingers on a napkin and looks over at me. “What’s your name?”

“Armand Douglas,” I announce brusquely. He just looks at me, and I glance over with a smirk. “Or just Armie. Family or not.”

“Armie?” he repeats.

“Yep.” I clip off the end of that line of questioning before it gets out of hand and start a new one. “How old are you?”

He hesitates, sits up straighter. “Twenty.”

I stare at him, wait for it.

Then he slumps. “Well, I will be. In December.” He pauses. “You?”

“Not twenty.”

He peers at me curiously through the water stains still on his glasses. “Twenty…five?”

I point upwards with my thumb.

“Twenty-six?”

Up more.

“Twenty-seven?”

I take a long drink of Coke, and glance over at him. “Does it matter to you?”

Something heavy and breathing forms between us as we look at each other for a few seconds. It could be what we all are before we come into this world kicking and screaming, heavy breaths in repose; a tableau.

His eyes briefly dart to my lips, then back up.

“No.” He says finally, shaking his head. “No, of course not.” He looks down at his hands and says softly, “Why would it matter?”

Well, for one, it makes me a creep. Spying on someone is one thing, it’s something you expect from the young, and that’s something I am not. Body nor soul. The thoughts he’s already provoking within me are just leading toward disaster. And someone my age should know better. You never give yourself over, you never give yourself up. It’s best to wake up alone. Your freedom comes first. Always.

I clear my throat. “So, you live with your Aunt?”

He shifts in the seat.

“Isn’t that what you said?”

“I don’t live with her.” He folds his arms in front of his chest. “Just sort of a…”

“Visit?”

“Yeah.”

I nod, waiting on him to say more, but he doesn’t. “Visiting for the summer?”

“I guess so. I mean, I’ve been there since May, so…”

“You’re not in school?”

He shakes his head and gets really interested in his fingers.

I don’t know his Aunt. Or, rather, I know her as the lady that hangs her underpants right underneath my balcony. I’ve never made a point to say hi to her or anything. I don’t make it a point to say hi to anyone. Unless they’re watching me from afar.

I want more, though. I want to know why he’s not in school, when he seems like that type. The brainy type. Not like me, who flunked out of tenth grade, because I couldn’t pass my tests, and made up for it with other skills and the work of my hands.

But I decide not to press him anymore. “You ready?”

He nods and I start the engine.

As we drive back I think about waking up alone, but maybe sometimes finding a way not to go to bed alone. I found the last guy at a bar in the city. It took me a while to find it, but it didn’t take me long to find him. I took him home and fucked him and made sure he was gone by first light. He left nothing behind except his scent on my pillow, and I just washed it away. I promised myself I wouldn’t do it again.

But I went back the following Friday. Saturday. Sunday. Then the joint was raided by the cops on a Wednesday, and when I got there a couple days later, it was shut down and I was just shit out of luck.

Story of my life.

“Did we just steal this car?” Tim asks as we pull away.

I don’t know why, maybe it’s how he says it, but that makes me laugh. “Nah.” I look over at him. “Borrowed.”

“Borrowed.” He nods. “Took out a loan.”

I snicker. “Exactly.”

And he smiles back. He _smiles_. I realize it’s the first time I’m seeing it and it changes his whole face. Green meadows in those eyes and millions of particles of light in that smile, and all at once, there’s that fucking flutter again, and my stomach sinks because I know I’m a goner.

I’m done for.

Wicked desire and sinking ships.

* * *

We get back to my apartment in the late afternoon.

Things feel lighter between us. It feels like he’s holding on tighter as we ride back, but I shouldn’t be able to tell that or want to tell that. His face is flushed with excitement when he gets off the bike, his hair tousled by the wind. It makes me avert my gaze. I don’t want to blatantly stare at him, even though he kind of deserves it, but my bike is clean now. Guess we’re Even Steven.

We stand in front of the apartment building, in an awkward sort of way, me turned to go inside and Tim turned to go to the gate. But then we turn back to each other and then we turn away, he lingers, and I hate that I want him to stay.

“Your bike looks good,” he murmurs.

“It does. Thanks.”

“So, I guess,” he looks down at his shoes, now scuffed and with little drops of chrome polish on them, “I’ll leave you alone now. And…everything.”

I know I shouldn’t say it. Shouldn’t even suggest it. But I’m a goner now. Might as well pillage and plunder on my way down. “If you ever feel like it, you can come on up. Stop by. Whatever.”

“Really?”

I have to be imagining the hopefulness in his voice. “Yeah. Just.” I shrug and look down at the rock I’m rolling around with my shoe. “Just whatever. Whenever. If you get bored.”

“Okay. Like tomorrow morning?”

I look up at him, shake my head with a smirk. “Tomorrow’s Sunday and I’m sleeping in.”

“Oh.” He nods like he should know this. “Yeah. Sure. Um,” he gives me a pensive look, “later then?”

I shrug like it’s no big deal, take out a cigarette. “Sure. That’s cool.”

“Okay.” He smiles again, and I can’t help but return it. “See you, um, see you tomorrow.”

He skitters through the gate and he’s gone. I could go on up and probably catch him going through his Aunt’s yard, glance down at that shrub where he watched me from, and tell myself I should know better.

“He’s never even had a beer,” I grumble to myself as I go inside, take off my jacket, and look for another pack of smokes. I almost do my usual, go out onto the balcony with my cigarettes and a beer, but something stops me. I sit down at the kitchen table instead, feeling suddenly alone, really alone for the first time in a long time.

I finish my cigarette and decide to hop in the shower, but instead of looking at one of my girly magazines, I get into the hot steam with him on my mind. I’ll allow it. I’ll allow my mind to be filled with thoughts of his smile, his body against mine, his fingers tight around my waist. I’ll allow the image of him naked underneath me, panting and sweating, his cock hard and leaking against my stomach, and then I hear him say my name, just as I’m falling over the edge and carrying him with me.

It doesn’t take long, and I’m coming hard and silent all over my hand.


	3. Timmy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine's Day! Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> The next update won't be until the Sunday after next. 
> 
> I know :( Sorry. I was updating every Sunday rather than every other because I had the chapters ready. But, you know, life. 
> 
> Thank you again for reading. Even if this isn't your cup of tea, I thank you for giving it a chance anyway! <3

I think about all the things I was right about:

♥ Mechanic.

♥ Cigarette-burns on the kitchen table.

♥ Engine grease staining his fingers.

♥ The scent of him after a ride on his motorcycle.

♥ And his eyes.

Oh, his eyes.

I lay in bed with my hands clasped together as if I’m in prayer, but really I’m just holding it all right there. Everything about him in between my palms and close to my heart.

And his _eyes_.

I turn over on my pillow and close my eyes so I can fully see his. They’re as blue as a new day, but there’s a kindness around them I hadn’t noticed from so far away. A gentleness that diminishes the sternness when he smiles. And he smiled at me. There’s no way I imagined that. What a thing to happen: go from mortified to… _this_.

I pick idly at the tufts of yarn in the quilt. My grandmother made it, and wouldn’t she just be turning over in her grave to know what I think about when I lay under it? Wouldn’t she just be panicked in her pearls and starched skirts, beseeching Aunt Amy to drag me to a head shrink? I don’t have a bit of shame. Not a drop. I’ll revel in the delicious thoughts of his lips when he smiled at me, the clear blue-sky of his eyes when he looked at me at the drive-in, and how I was able to _touch_ him on that bike. I’ll do it until I’m dead. Nothing will stop me from reliving today over and over and over again. I never in a million years would’ve dreamed, and I can dream…oh, I can _really_ dream.

Is this what Marius felt like? When he first saw Cosette? When he first spoke to her? In that garden, in the evening, and in secret. She couldn’t let her father know, and I get it. I get that. But let us not forget the one who brought them together, let us not forget the tragedy that is Éponine. Let us not forget those that sacrifice.

I turn on the lamp and get up for my book. I decide to start reading at the part where Hugo just goes on and on about the cloistered nuns where Valjean sends Cosette. That square could really babble, but it’s important. It shows that _M'sieur le Maire_ was keeping his promise. He was a good man, a brave man. And I need that bravery. I need goodness.

Now is the time for it and Marius was brave, too. I’ll have to be brave tomorrow when I go over. And what are we going to do? Just sit around? Talk? I’m nervous at that gaping hole of unknown. I don’t like not knowing what to expect, because everything has changed in just one day. I liked to watch him each day because he was reliable, predictable. But now it’s all been cast into chaos, and I don’t know what to expect.

And, in a way, I can’t help but worry this is a trick. I’m being tricked and fooled by….something. Someone. Maybe when I get over there tomorrow, he’ll be annoyed. He’ll be looking at me the way he did when I first showed up at his door. He was ready to let me have it, and I can’t blame him. So, maybe all that earlier, that “come by if you want” was just him being polite. The things people say to be nice, but they don’t mean.

It’s like how pops would look at me across the dinner table when my mother wasn’t there, how he’d say, “well, just let me know if you need anything.”

 _Just let me know_.

And that wasn’t what I needed. People say that to one another to be polite, but it’s really cruel. Throw it back on the other person, the one who needs. Absolve oneself of having the burden and still be able to sleep at night.

And pops knew what I needed. He knew. He saw me. I went into their bedroom when my mother first stayed at the hospital. She was there for a week, and they said there were all these tests they had to do, and I didn’t want to know, so I went into the closet. I ran my fingers over her dresses. I sat on the blush-colored carpet and looked up at all her things. Hat boxes arranged like she’d need her winter ones within reach. And pops came in, undid his tie in the mirror. I looked at him and caught his eye in the reflection, and the way he scowled at me. I guess he couldn’t hide it any longer.

I was never the son he wanted. Let’s just be honest. All the sons of his friends played in the big game while I watched. All the sons of his friends were exuberant, extroverted, and extraordinary. All the sons of his friends were broad and strapping and could crush me in a fight. My mother was between us, always, providing that much-needed zone of peace. Neither one of us was willing to trample over it to be at each other’s throats.

And then she was gone and there was nothing there but a wasteland.

Sooner or later, one of us was going to snap.

I burrow myself under the quilt. I read and try to forget, but that’s the thing.

Forgetting isn’t forgiving.

* * *

I’m pacing around the sitting room and Aunt Amy’s doing her needlepoint.

She’s got the TV off because we usually watch _Lassie_ at seven and then _Lawrence Welk_ right after, but I think I might not be here. Maybe. I look over at her, and she’s watching me with that raised brow.

Before she can speak, I say, “I’m leaving.” I point to Armie’s apartment. “I mean, just going over there. Later. Just right there.”

She blinks at me, needle paused. “Oh. Well. That’s nice.” She starts the needle up again. “Is that the fellow from yesterday?”

“Yeah. I mean, yes.”

A mild smile crosses her lips. “I’m glad, you know. Making friends.”

“Yea - yes. Sure.” I sit, my knee bouncing with nerves.

“What’s he like?” She asks idly, her attention on the pattern she’s making. It looks like a goose in a dress with a bonnet.

“Huh?”

“Your friend. What’s he like?”

“I don’t know. He rides a motorcycle.”

“Oh, that’s who that is.” She pulls a stitch out of the beak. “I wondered, you know. I hear it all the time but wasn’t sure who it belonged to. And I suppose it would be someone in _that_ building.”

I look down at what I’m wearing and consider changing clothes again. He seemed to think what I wore yesterday was odd, when I thought I looked pretty swell honestly, so today I’ve got on one of my button-ups, short-sleeved, and with my blue jeans. At first I tucked the shirt in, then untucked it, then repeated the pattern about five times before I settled on it just hanging out. Because I could see him doing that. That’s what he’d do.

I look over at her. “What do you mean _that_ building?”

She shrugs. “You can always tell someone by how they keep their house. That’s all I’m saying.” She glances over at me with a faint smile. “I’m sure you’re a good judge of character, though, and it’s good you’re getting out and about.”

“Is it?”

“Certainly, Timmy. It’s good to do things.”

“So I can just forget about before already and get out of your hair?”

Her head turns to me, and I feel a kick of defiance. Followed swiftly by guilt. It isn’t her fault. None of this is her fault. Almost two months ago, she stood between me and the cop in her chiffon nightgown, hairnet and everything, as if the cop’s questions might hurt me even more. She had one big man-hand on my shoulder, reassuring, and she cleaned up my bloody lip and put a frozen chicken on my eye. I was in no state to answer questions, so she was the barricade between me and the law. And she didn’t have to do it. Not at all.

“I’m sorry,” I say quickly. “I don’t know why I said that.”

Her face creases with hurt. “I don’t want you to forget anything. And you’re not in my hair.” She purses her lips. “I just wish that…” She shakes her head. “Never mind.” She stands up and goes into the kitchen. “I’m going to make some tea if you want any.”

_I just wish that you’d forgive him._

She’s never said it, but I know she thinks it. And it’s fine. I can hold this over my father’s head as long as I want. The phone calls from him aren’t going to convince me. Oh, no. I already know there’s nothing he can do. Nothing he can say. Lines were crossed. And the thing of it is, I’m not forgivable, and I know that I’m not, so I can hold my own absolution hostage for as long as I want.

If Armie had wanted to, he could have stormed over here and told Aunt Amy what I was up to. And the very next phone call she would have made would have been to pops, and I’d be out of here. What else could she do? Her nephew’s a peeping tom. It would have been humiliating for her. But Armie didn’t, and now it’s like we’re pals hanging out. And all because I couldn’t keep my eyes off him. This can’t possibly be the consequences, can it?

Aunt Amy sits back down with her needlepoint while the kettle boils. She settles into her chair, her fingernails freshly polished, because she always does them on Saturday nights. She doesn’t ever have any callers, so why not? I look down at my own fingernails and try to picture them Man-Killer Red.

“Do you —” she begins, but I cut her off.

“I was spying on him.”

She stops the needle midpoint. “What?”

“I was spying on him. The guy in _that_ building. His name is Armand Douglas. And he caught me. That’s why. That’s how we’re…friends.”

She looks at me, mouth open, false lashes blinking.

“I just thought…I was worried he’d tell you, and you’d make me leave. You’d want me to go.”

She sets her needlepoint in her lap.

“But he’s not mad. I mean, I guess he’s not. He invited me over. I washed his motorcycle. So, it’s like we’re even.”

Her expression is all over the place but mostly puzzled. She closes her eyes for a second. Opens them. “Um. All right. I suppose I should ask why, but you’ve been through a lot the past couple of months. Just don’t do it again.” She leans forward for emphasis. “He could have called the police.”

I swallow. I nod my understanding. I hadn’t thought of that.

She picks up the needlepoint once more as if it’s this new chore. “And I’d never make you leave, Timmy.” Her voice softens. “I want you to know that.”

The teapot whistles and she gets up to tend to it. I get up, too, suddenly anxious and unable to keep still. A wild dart of energy shoots through me, and I can’t wait anymore.

“I’ll try to be back before _Lawrence Welk_ ,” I call to her and rush out the back door.

I just spilled the beans, and I can’t handle myself.

I wonder if someone else can.

* * *

I walk in as soon as he opens the door.

The sitting room is dim like it was yesterday, and I see he’s cleaned up the ashes I spilled.

“I’m sorry, if I’m like early,” I say, just inviting myself right on in. “But you said if I ever got bored, and I was bored, so…”

And then my eyes adjust and I finally get a good look at him, standing there. With no shirt. Just his denim and…no shirt.

“Oh.” It comes out of me in a short breath.

The air in his apartment is moist and warm, the scent of Lifebuoy soap surrounds him. His skin still looks damp and his hair is smoothed back from his face.

And no shirt.

“Come on in,” he says sardonically, wrapping a butter-colored towel around his neck.

And I have to look away, at anything, everything, but him. I can’t look at the dusting of hair on his chest, the soft lines of his biceps, or the scruff across his jaw. Because I swear to God, _I swear to God_ , every ounce of blood I have will flow to my cock and that’ll be the end of it all right here. My eyes will roll back, and I’ll be face-down, splat, on his floor.

“Um.” I look down and my glasses slip and I push them back up. “I didn’t mean to —” I look out the window behind the sofa. “I know you said later, or we agreed, later. Sorry.”

“You okay?”

I chance a glance at him and he’s pulling a T-shirt down over another soft thatch of hair around his navel. I feel incredibly disappointed, but it’s for the best. For now.

“Mmhm. Fine.”

His eyes narrow. “You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“You look like you could use a drink,” he says easily, moving past me to the kitchen.

I follow him with my gaze and see that’s where the balcony doors lead out from. This itty-bitty kitchen. Just an icebox, a stove, and a couple cabinets. I start to wonder if he just doesn’t have a lot of money.

He hands me a bottle of Ballantine, and I make a show like I know what I’m doing, opening it with the opener he hands me. But the top flies and rolls under his easy chair, and I mutter an apology. I brace myself for the first sip because I know it’s going to taste bad, but I don’t want him to know I’ve only had like one in my life, and I couldn’t even finish it.

I swallow the bitter, yeasty liquid and distract my way through a gag by sitting on his sofa. He takes the easy chair and lights up a cigarette. I look around and notice he doesn’t have a television, but there’s a radio on his kitchen table.

“So, what do you do all day?” I ask, then immediately wince.

He gives me a funny look. “On the weekends? Just whatever. Take my laundry down. Listen to some records. Sometimes ride into town and pick up a few things. During the week I work. You’re well aware of what my evenings are like.” He rests an elbow on the back of the chair, displaying himself in such a way that I can get a good look without trying too hard. “What do _you_ do all day? Besides, you know, stare at people.”

I feel my cheeks burn a little, but his tone is playful. “I don’t know. Read. Watch TV. I find things to do, I guess.”

“And you don’t have a job or school or anything?”

“No.”

“And so this is like…a vacation?”

I shrug at that and take another acrid sip.

Aunt Amy doesn’t even know the whole thing. Just what she saw, what I had to tell the police, and I suppose she put two-and-two together. When Javert finally confronted Valjean, it was clear who the aggressor was. It was clear why Valjean had to defend himself. How else could he have escaped? How else could he have kept his promise to Fantine?

“It’s cool if you don’t want to say,” Armie says. “I was just wondering.”

I half nod, half shrug. Take another drink.

“And you don’t have to drink the beer if you don’t want it,” he says with a knowing look in his eyes.

“I want it,” I insist, clutching it to me. “I like beer,” I take another drink and try to hide the shudder.

He laughs. “You ever seen Lucy Ricardo and that Vitameatavegamin bit? That’s exactly what you look like, pal.”

“No, I don’t.” I clear my throat. “I mean, I don’t drink a lot. My Aunt doesn’t drink anything but wine, and I don’t like wine. So.”

He nods, chuckles; sits back and surveys me. “What do you read?”

“Old stuff. Books nobody cares about.” I pause and get a good gulp of alcohol. I look down at the sneakers I hardly wear, push my glasses up. “My favorite is _Les Miserables_.” Then I hold my breath, and look over at him.

I don’t expect him to love it, too. Or even know it. I just don’t want him to make fun of me. And it’s not like I dislike the writers of my generation, but sometimes some long-dead revolutionary going on and on and on about a bunch of cloistered nuns is exactly what I need.

Armie just nods, and looks around his sitting room. “I don’t read much. As you can see.” There’s some disappointment in his tone. “I guess it’s just not my thing.”

I feel the tingle of relief. “What is your thing?”

“Cars, I guess. My bike. Anything that rides.”

I like the way his expression changes when he says it. The look of self-assurance, of knowing. “Who do you work for?”

He shrugs. “Me.” He takes a long pull on his Ballantine. “I had to save up. Took me…” He tilts his head as he thinks about it. “About a year and a couple of months. I live cheap so I can pay the rent on the garage. The guy that runs the shop next door owns it. Lets me lease it for my own work. Sometimes he’ll throw a customer or two my way.”

“Why don’t you just work for him?”

He gives me that smirk that has become so familiar to me now. I’ve captured it in my mind like a photo and framed it, too.

“I don’t want to work _for_ anyone,” he replies. “It’s a drag to make some other square rich, while I run around on a wheel. No thanks.”

A lock of hair slips down over his forehead. What I wouldn’t do to be the one that brushes it away. And the way he’s laying back like that, all displayed, what I wouldn’t do to please him. I’d get on my knees, I’d swallow him down, he could come on my bare skin and all he’d have to do is ask. Not even that. It’s merciful, to allow me to, it’s just the kind of recompense I need, and I can’t stop wondering what he tastes like, and next thing I know I have to lean over, I have to set the beer down and cross my arms over my lap. And please, please, please don’t let him see.

But he’s rolling the bottle of beer in between his hands now, looking faraway into a distance only he can see. “I got plans. Stuff I’m gonna do. Later.”

“Like what,” I prompt.

“Just stuff.” He takes a drink.

“I’ve got plans, too.”

“Yeah?” He looks at me curiously. “Like what?”

“I’m going to move to the Rockies and live on the side of a mountain.” I blurt it out as if it’s always been my dream. “I’ll have a library of rare books, and then a library of books I hate. I’m going to keep a diary of everything I think about and everything I do. Then I’m going to drink a lot of brandy and die young. But, first, I’m going to leave my diary somewhere where a mountain climber might find it. I’ll be famous after I’m dead. Like Anne Frank.”

If he thinks any of this is strange, his face doesn’t show it. “You don’t say?”

I shrug. Swallow more beer. “Sure. Why not?”

He laughs, but it isn’t at me, because his laugh is infectious, and it makes me do the same.

“I’ll drink to that,” he says, holding up his beer.

I grab mine and clink mine against his, and we both drink.

There now. Wasn’t this easy? I’m here in his sitting room with him, talking like we’re best pals, and I could’ve been doing this all along. Just what in the hell was my problem? It feels so easy-breezy, I consider asking him for a cigarette.

And I’m really starting to like beer.

* * *

“Hey, hey, HEY…why do they call them flying saucers? Why not like flying lamps…cause, cause all they are is…just lights.” I look up at Armie’s face to see if he’s as concerned about this as me, but he just shakes his head.

“In Texas,” I continue explaining. “They’re aaaallllll over Texas. I guess Martians like Texas, eh?” I giggle at this, imagining Marvin Martian in a ten gallon hat. “Do they really hold ten gallons?”

“What?”

“The hats…”

“Come on, pal.” He nudges my foot with his. “You need to go to bed.”

I’m not exactly sure how I ended up on the floor, but I’m laying partially under his coffee table while he stands over me. It seems like I’ve been here for days or just a few minutes. I want to start singing about bottles of beer on walls, but I stop myself.

“I don’t wanna go home,” I mumble instead, my head swimming, and he looks so glowy in the lamplight, like an angel. “Where’s your wings at, pal?”

He shakes his head again, puts out his cigarette. “What’s your Aunt’s number?”

I thrust a fist into the air. “24601!”

He grabs it. “Come on.”

“Awwwwwww, you wanna hold my hand.”

He pulls me up, and I feel so damn heavy, like I’m made of stone. And somewhere in my swimming thoughts, bouncing around on a sea of booze, I seem to recall there was a fairytale about some Prince or Princess, or something like that, where they were going to turn into stone unless someone kissed them.

Or maybe it was just a frog or a…duck?

I don’t care, and I don’t want to turn into stone, so once I’m on my feet, I stumble into him, put both my hands around his face, and I look into those deep blue pools of sky, and it just tumbles out of my mouth, completely unbidden: “Kiss me.”

I feel heat between my palms and the heat of his breath. There’s the scent of his cigarettes and something orangey spice underneath. I resist the urge to bury my face in his neck and breathe him in fully. I want to unfold him like a map, trace all his beginnings and endings, then wrap myself up in him, tight. It’s an urge that overcomes, that inches through my heartbeats so delicately that tears are in my eyes.

The blue sky flickers for a second. I feel one of his arms curl around me like a vine. I’m held and steadied on my stumbling feet, and the skin of his face is so warm and prickly from his scruff, and so my thumbs start to move, almost as if they had their own little thumb-minds, little circles, little circles, smooth skin and prickly scruff. And then the hand of his other arm slowly comes up to my face and his fingers gently push my glasses up my nose that I hadn’t even noticed had slipped. A stray finger trails down my cheek a haphazard path to my neck. I sigh and move in closer, closer.

But he pulls back and gently pries my hands away. “Come on, pal.” His voice is soft but firm. “Let’s get you home.”

“Kiss me first…before the flying saucer gets here…and takes me to Texas.”

“Let’s go.”

“Sure thing…pal.”

“Come on. You’re okay.”

I feel like I’m walking, but I’m not. There’s an arm around me, and I feel half-lifted. “I don’t wanna go to Texas.”

“You won’t.”

And then everything is kind of dark, and I hear bugs and knocking. And then there’s someone else’s voice. A woman’s voice.

“Don’t wanna go to Texas…”

“Okay, pal. You sleep it off okay?”

And then I feel big arms around me, hands holding me up, and they’re big like a man’s but I know they’re not his. And then I fall face-down onto something soft, and I feel a blanket being pulled over me.

“Kiss me…,” I whisper. “In the flying saucer…”

“It’s all right, Timmy.”

“Texas…

“It’s all right. Sleep it off.”

“Mmmmkay…”

And somewhere in my boozed up mind, I know I’ve done something. I know I’ve turned a corner I can’t unturn. And now I’ve revealed it, I’ve shown him. It’s like he’s seen my underpants hanging on the clothesline.

But I sink deeper and deeper into a warm sleep, dreamy and dark, deciding I’ll just worry about it tomorrow. Because tomorrow is an unmade bed, and in my dreams he waits for me there, with warm skin and heated breaths.


	4. Armie

I don’t know what it is.

Maybe it’s because I haven’t gotten my rocks off with some fella in a while. Could be something in the air, summertime, and what it brings. Heat and sunsets and air so alive, so vibrant. Seasons pass, I hardly notice them now. It’s ironic, in a way. We grew up living by their rhythm. Our very lives depended upon them.

And now. Here I am. Grown up and outgrown.

The garage is quiet today except for the records, metal tools, and their echos. When there’s this kind of noise, I always hope it drowns out my thoughts, but they seem to want to poke through today. They seem to want to remind me of Tim and his hands on my face and the way he looked at me. Antonietta Stella is really trying, though. She’s just hitting the A sharp at the end of Act I when I see a shadow behind me.

I spin around in the chair and see the outline of someone at the garage door. Tim steps inside, hands in his pockets, and I go over to the record player and take the needle off. It’s wrong to be this glad, isn’t it?

He scrunches up his face. “What was that?”

“ _La Traviata_.” I toss the wrench I’m holding into a toolbox. “What are you doing here?”

“La what?”

“I was first.”

And then he ducks his head, and I see he’s dressed all casual again, like last night. I try not to think about his hands on me. I try not to think about what he said, and in all honesty, it didn’t surprise me. What did surprise me is that I wanted to, I was going to, I was so close. What did surprise me is that I would’ve let his drunken ass sleep in my bed while I took the couch, and I would’ve made him breakfast this morning.

But he’s got that Aunt, and I don’t know.

She might be protective, and since he won’t tell me why he’s there, I thought it was best to get him home.

And now he’s here.

“Wait, how did you get here?” I ask him.

He shrugs. “I walked.”

“That’s kind of a long walk, pal.”

“Well, I had to.” He pushes up his glasses. “I wanted to tell you I’m sorry.”

It’s an awful long way for an unnecessary apology, but I know why he’s doing it. There’s an expectancy on his face as he waits; a hope I should have never given him in the first place. This was never more true than last night.

I wipe sweat and grit from my forehead and concentrate on polishing up the newly repaired windshield on the Impala. “You were pretty drunk. We all say things. Do things.”

“Yeah, sure.”

When I glance over at him, he looks crestfallen.

“It’s really okay,” I assure him. “I mean, I’ve been there.” I rub a cloth over the smooth glass. “I was in the city one time and had a few too many. Fell down some stairs. It happens.”

“Yeah.”

I can’t take the hurt on his face. “Don’t worry about it, pal. It’s all right.”

He nods, makes a glance around the garage, and backs towards the door. “I guess I should go.”

I toss the cloth over to my workbench. “Sure you don’t want a ride back?”

“No, I like walking.”

And then he turns, his head down, and I feel like such a heel. It’s like holding in a breath while hiding. When summer days were long and easy, I’d go into the barn during hide-and-seek, my place being up in the loft where I could look down and watch my brothers walk in to look for me. Viktor never found me, and Mike would play along, act like he didn’t see me when he clearly did. And I would try to stay out of sight, hold my breath, and I’d take the whole thing so seriously. I didn’t want to be found, even back then. I learned to stay quiet for hours, amuse myself, because I knew eventually they would stop looking. They would give up. If there was no longer anyone to miss you, to look for you, to think of you, you could do anything. Go anywhere.

You’re free.

I go to the door, light a cigarette. I watch him walk away, hunched, hands in pockets, and I feel braced, cemented on the spot. I can’t muster up the voice to call him back even though I want to. I want to say what it was last night, give it a name, and give it life. Because sometimes I want someone to search for me, never give up on me, and think of me. But it’s just going to die now, the further he gets; it’s being pulled apart and this will be the end of it then. I shouldn’t have put my arm around him. I shouldn’t have asked him over, and this is what I get.

But then, without breaking his stride, he does a full circle and comes back. He walks right up to me and gets close, so close I take a step back, and he lifts his head to look at me, those eyes holding secrets I want to know. A whole life ahead of him, and I don’t think those eyes have seen the things I’ve seen. He’s green; he’s new. What right do I have?

“I wasn’t that drunk,” he whispers. “And you weren’t drunk at all.”

I avert my gaze. Take a drag from my cigarette.

“And you can’t tell me I imagined it because I was drinking. I know I didn’t.”

I look over at the parking lot owned by the place next door. A lady gets out of a Pontiac with two little kids. The girl shoves a lollypop in her mouth and gives us a long stare.

I finish my cigarette, drop it, stomp it. “I need to get this done.” I nod to the Impala. “See you around.”

And like a smooth piece of chocolate, I turn my back to him, and make my way over to the workbench. I get a piece of newspaper and window cleaner. And I can feel he’s still there, his gaze on the back of my neck, pricking me like needles, but it’s the kind of sting I crave. I want. I deserve.

When I finally muster up the nerve to turn around, the garage door is empty. Sun shining, and no sound but the silence.

* * *

I stand just inside by the balcony door.

I’ve got my Pabst and my pack of Lucky’s. It’s automatic at this point, just something that I do, but yet I’m standing here, unable to go through that door. Just a few days ago, I would have gone out, sat in my chair, and quickly glanced to my lower left to see if he was in the shrub. It got to be comforting after a while, something to expect, something to rely on. It only got irksome when it looked like he wasn’t trying very hard to hide. When I felt like I had to go to great lengths to pretend I didn’t see him. Turn my head and act as if I were interested in something in the distance, focus on my cigarette, just something, and then it got to be tiresome. Annoying.

That’s where I went wrong. I spoke up, broke the spell, and now I can’t even smoke on my own damn balcony. I slump down at my kitchen table. I turn on the radio, light my cigarette, and roll through the stations until that annoys me, too, and I turn it off.

I smoke and drink at the table for a time, glancing out the balcony doors every now and again. It’s quiet out in the neighborhood this evening, and I’m sure it’s because of the Dogwood Festival. I handed over the Impala to the ass today so his daughter can smile and wave. As I think about it, just the whole day in general, my foot starts to tap and there’s a dull ache behind my eyes. I flick the lighter open and closed, turn the beer can around and around, and then I spring up from the chair.

After a quick shower, I leave my apartment, go across the alleyway. I open the gate to his Aunt’s yard, like I did last night. And Tim was just hanging from my neck like an intoxicated orangutan, muttering shit about Texas. Without me meaning it to, a private grin forms on my face.

Last night I just went to the back door, but I feel funny about it now, so I walk around to the front and knock on the front door.

After about a minute, Tim’s Aunt opens it and appears behind the screen.

“Oh,” she says. “Mister…?”

“The name’s Armie.” I pause. “Listen, um…is Tim here?”

She gives me a look over.

“I’m sorry,” I add quickly. “About last night. I didn’t know he’d get…what I mean is, I didn’t really watch how much he was drinking. Just figured he was like any fella, had been out before, you know?”

His Aunt gives me a flat smile. I don’t see much resemblance between him and her except for the thick dark hair. And she’s a big lady. Not fat, just big boned and tall.

“Well, I appreciate you bringing him back here,” she says.

“Was he all right?”

“He’s fine.” She looks at me for a handful of seconds. “Mister… Armie. Timmy’s…well, he’s had a hard time the last couple of months. I’m glad he’s made a friend, but…could I ask a favor?”

“Sure.”

“Could you make sure he keeps out of trouble?”

I nod, give her my word, when I see him appearing just behind her, the reflection of his glasses behind the screen.

His Aunt turns. “Timmy, your friend’s here.”

He sticks his hands in his pockets.

“Hey.” I attempt to make my voice sound light. “You wanna go do something?”

He looks at her and looks at me. My mind turns over and over what his Aunt just said like turning over rocks. He’s had some trouble in his life, and worry begins to worm its way into me; worry cloaked with care.

And I’m not happy about it. At all.

Tim lifts his head, his eyes shining with a humor, and nods. “Okay.”

Well, maybe a little bit.

* * *

I don’t say anything when he puts his hands all the way around me and rests them on my abdomen.

I don’t say anything when we park my bike at the far end of a row of cars, and follow the smells of roasted peanuts and kettle corn. I don’t say anything when all the festival lights come on and everything is electric confetti, sugary sweet, and spinning laughter.

I say nothing and Tim says nothing as he walks along beside me, glancing over every so often, while we look at booths of games, prizes, and food. There’s an announcement about the Miss Dogwood thing, and I decide I can live without it.

I’m vaguely excited. I loved these kinds of things when I was kid. One of my best memories of Mike - just the year before I fucked things up - was at the state fair. He took responsibility for me, held my hand, and led me around. We sat in these rickety wooden seats and watched this lady jump on a horse and leap from a high dive into a pool. I thought they were hurt, but the horse and the lady came up out of the water and they were fine. She took a bow.

Nothing bad ever seemed to happen as long as Mike was looking out for me. I guess that’s where everything in my life went wrong.

And there’s no one to blame but me.

“You want to get a beer?”

Tim’s voice startles me, and I turn to him. He’s back-lit by the carousel. There’s a breeze and it tousles some of his hair. It’s not a flutter anymore. It’s more like an ache.

I force out a laugh. “You lush.”

A smile grows slowly on his face, and we go get a couple of beers and some of the kettle corn. He takes it easy with the alcohol and we just walk around for a bit. It’s been forever since I’ve been to one of these things. I’ve had a particular aversion to people over the last few years, and I start feeling sweaty as we weave around groups of teens and families. It’s all so normal and so outside of me, it makes me feel like I’m a ghost observing the living.

There are some carnival rides at the back of the school in the parking lot. We take a walk back there, and Tim looks up at the Ferris wheel and then at me.

“You want to go up?” I ask him.

He lifts a shoulder. “I’ve never been on one.”

I look at him, incredulous. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Geez, pal. Everybody’s been on a Ferris wheel.”

“Guess I’m not everybody.”

I look at him until his eyes catch mine. “No. You’re definitely not.”

His eyes dart to my lips where they linger, and I want to reach out and run my fingers over his, but I realize where we are, and so we go over to the Ferris wheel, get in line, and wait. My heart is thudding when we get on, and I don’t know why. I’m suddenly so nervous and extremely aware of myself. How I’m sitting, how I’m moving, what my face looks like, what my clothes look like — everything.

We get into the swinging bucket and the thing takes off. As we go around, high up enough to see the lights downtown, I look over at Tim and the grin on his face, the absolute _joy_ there just gets me right in the gut. And the ache inside me deepens, and I know I can’t get out of this now. Even if I wanted to.

And I don’t.

* * *

“So…you were listening to opera?”

The wheel goes around and around, and I like the breeze and all the lights down below. For a second I feel almost as happy as Tim’s smile.

“Yeah.” I look over at him. “I was. _Timmy_.”

I can’t really tell, but I know his face is flushing. “She just calls me that because she’s my Aunt.”

“Right.”

He leans his arms on the rail of the bucket seat and looks down. “So, why were you listening to it?”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know.” He looks over at me, pushes his glasses up. “I just didn’t expect that I guess.”

I give him a half-smile. “And why’s that?”

He returns the half-smile. “Well, you know. The motorcycle. Working on cars, getting all greasy and stuff. Just seems…I don’t know.”

“What?” I press him.

He laughs. “I don’t know! But it was kind of neato, you know? That you like that stuff, I mean.”

“Neato?”

“You know what I mean.” He sits back in the seat, making it swing.

“Is that what the kids say now?”

“I’m not a kid,” he says righteously, pushing up his glasses. He fiddles with the edge of his shirt. “And you weren’t like embarrassed that someone would hear it?”

“No. Why would I be?”

He shrugs. “What did you call it?”

“ _La Traviata._ ”

“Hmm.”

“Yeah, it’s about this dame that’s got TB and like, a courtesan in Paris.” I pull out a cigarette and light it. “Her name’s Violetta and she meets this fella named Alfredo. And so she gives up her whole life for this square and they go live in a country house. And then Alfredo’s dad can’t mind his own business and gets Violetta to leave his son, saying she’s like embarrassing the family and shit. So she goes back to the courtesan thing, and she’s like all getting sicker from the TB, and Alfredo goes to a party that she’s at and throws money at her to embarrass her. Then finally, the dad’s like ‘Ooops, I guess I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sending my son to tell you he’s sorry’ and she ends up dying in Alfredo’s arms.”

I look over to see that Tim has inched closer to me while I was babbling. He looks completely fascinated. “And that’s it?”

“Yep.” I take a drag.

“That’s really sad.”

Then the wheel slows to a stop with our bucket seat at the tippy-top. I lean over the rail, and take another drag, gazing out at the downtown lights. “Yeah, but she wasn’t alone at least.”

“No, but still. She died after all of that.”

“It’s Victorian. Everybody dies in those things.” I look over at him.

He gets thoughtful, his expression considering. He looks at the bucket seat in front of us and then turns his head to look behind us. As he does so, I feel his fingers on my thigh, shy. Careful.

I can only manage about a second of restraint before I bring down one of my hands and put mine over his. I keep my gaze forward, towards the downtown lights as I feel his hand turn, fingers curling, rubbing against my palm in lazy strokes. I feel my dick already getting hard, and I take a long drag and exhale. I thread my fingers through his, clutching his hand, and I squeeze. I hear his swift intake of breath.

I lose track of the time. All there is, is his hand in mine, fingers rubbing, squeezing, the warmth of it, and then he wraps his fingers around my thumb and does a suggestive move that makes sweat breakout on my forehead. Every thought disappears from my mind except for ones about him and that hand of his. Next thing I know, we’re down on the ground and exiting the bucket seat.

As soon as we’re out, I light another cigarette, and turn to see him walking up behind me, hands in his pockets as if nothing just happened.

We stand there for a minute. It’s completely dark out now and there’s still a healthy crowd. I look around for an area with no lights and few people. I scan and scan. Until I see one.

Tim shuffles his feet. “I heard the Everly Brothers were supposed to be h —”

I grab his arm and pull him along. I toss my cigarette and take him over to an area where there’s just generators and then a dark field with some trees beyond that. I get him up against a maple, hidden away from all the lights and people, a secret place, a dark place. I lean over him, placing one hand on the tree beside his head.

He looks up at me, his breath quick, mouth open. I bring up my other hand, thumb stroking his bottom lip, feeling the soft, warm puffs of his breaths on my fingertip. I cradle his jaw and run my thumb over his cheek. It’s not a matter of if, but a matter of how. And he’s completely sober right now.

“I need you to say you want me to,” I whisper to him.

He takes off his glasses, putting them in his shirt pocket. “I want you to. Please.”

He looks at me with such longing, and I feel like something in what he just said is so familiar, but I’m done stalling, and so I lean in. I lean over him and press my lips against his.

I do it slow at first, soft, easy. But then he tilts his head and opens his mouth, inviting. I dip my tongue in and find his, making us both groan at the same time. He tastes faintly of the beer from earlier and his breath is hot on my cheek. I feel his hands slide up over my shoulders and around my neck, and I deepen the kiss, exploring, brushing his tongue with mine in long strokes. And it’s like nothing else. Really. I can’t think of another kiss like this, and soon all other kisses I’ve ever had just vanish from existence from the intensity of this one.

He makes a sound in his throat, like a soft groan, and I slip my hand around his neck, rubbing, and slide my fingers into his hair. He pulls me right up against him, and I feel the bulge in his pants as sure as he can feel mine. He pulls away and begins kissing along my jaw, my neck, resting his lips at the base of my throat, breathing deep. A pause.

I wonder if he can feel the thud of my pulse or hear the scramble like radio static in my head. I feel dazed, like a signal that’s been knocked off the air.

I run my fingers through his hair and he pulls away, pulls back, and looks up at me. Those mossy-green eyes are hooded and dreamy. He looks different without his glasses. My fingers rub the marks on either side of his nose. His not-so-shy hand slides down my stomach to my fly. His fingers glide over the zipper and the bulge of my cock.

I inhale sharply. “We should go.”

“Go where?”

“My place.”

He puts his glasses back on, and we have go back out into the lights and people, but there’s less of them now, and we find my bike and get on. And it’s all just a blur. The whole thing. I might as well have blacked out and lost my memory. Except for this time on the bike he puts his arms around me, so close his crotch is up against my ass, and I don’t even care what the people in the cars think that pass us, because his hard dick is rutting right up against me all the way back, and I want it so bad.

And, finally, when we’re through the door, and I close it, he’s got me up against it. Kissing me hard and deep. I take his face in both my hands and return it, feeling him rub his hips against me. And then with his lips still on mine he reaches down to unbutton and unzip me, slides his hand right on down, and grasps me.

I groan into our kiss as soon as I feel his fingers and the friction. I get his pants undone and reach for him. My fingers brush past wiry hairs and wrap around his hard, and surprisingly long, cock. And then we’ve both got our dicks out and we’re jacking each other right there, standing in my sitting room. He leans his head against me, and I brace myself against the door. I close my eyes and listen to our harsh breaths, his soft grunts, and feel his fingers around me, his thumb darting over the tip every now and again. I like it so much I do it to him, and he’s got so much precome that my hand is slick with it.

His breaths get harsher, his grunts turn into groans, and I know he’s close. I try to slow down and I lean over to kiss him again, but he’s not slowing his pace on me. And then he lets out this cry and he comes in one long jet all over my hand and his shirt. His hand slows on me for a second, and then he starts back up, determined, planting desperate kisses on my neck. The familiar coil of heat begins to uncoil, and I feel my balls draw tight as I spurt all over both our hands and a little of it gets on his arm.

My heart pounding like a maniac and panting like crazy, I smack my head back against the door. “Shit.”

Tim examines the drops of my come on his arm. He brings it up to his lips and licks it.

“Fuck.” My knees buckle, and I sink down to the floor.

* * *

“You asleep?”

“No.”

I tilt his chin up from where his head is laying under my neck and see he’s indeed wide awake.

“Do you want to be asleep?”

“Nah.”

I smile and he wraps an arm around me. We’re laying on my sofa, our pants still unzipped, and I haven’t turned on a single light. But there’s a street light that comes in through the window. I hadn’t even thought to pull down the shades.

I stroke the side of his face and he slides a leg in between mine. My mind feels empty, as if everything I’d been thinking earlier shot out of me with my orgasm. But it’s peaceful, it’s nice, with him laying here beside me.

His arm tightens around me. “Do you want me to go?”

“Not if you don’t want to.” I reach for my smokes on the coffee table and the lighter. I take a long, hard-won drag.

He props his chin up on my chest and looks at me. I didn’t get to see his face when he came, his eyes, and I want to. The thought gets me hard all over again.

“What did my Aunt say to you?”

“Hm?”

“Earlier. What did she say to you?”

I flick ash off my cigarette in the ashtray. “She just asked me to look out for you.” I brush a finger over his lips. “I said I would.”

He gives me a long stare, then says, “She didn’t say anything else? Like, why I was there?”

“She said you had some trouble. A couple of months ago.” I try to stifle a yawn, and I can’t see the clock from where I’m laying. “Nothing else.”

He presses his lips together, his expression faltering. “I got into a fight. With my father.”

I take a drag and sit up a little. “Like a fight fight?”

“Yeah, I mean...” He glances down and back to my face. “My mother died last year. So, it’s been hard. On both of us.”

I sit up all the way and he does, too. “What happened?”

“She had cancer. Her liver.” He looks away. “That’s all I’d rather say about it right now.” His eyes flicker to me. “Okay?”

I put an arm around him. “Okay.”

He lays his head on my shoulder, and I’m bewildered and kind of shocked.

“So, that’s why you’re here,” I venture. “You can’t stay with your old man?”

He nods against my neck.

I put my cigarette out and rub his shoulder. There’s so much I want to ask, but I decide to save it. But at least I know now, sort of, why he’s staying at his Aunt’s.

A vague, half-formed thought enters my mind. One about how much longer he’ll stay there. And what will happen when he leaves. I don’t let that thought become fully formed.

“Well, for the record, I’m glad you came here.” I place a kiss on the top of his head.

He looks up at me, his eyes so dreamy and adoring, I can’t stand it. “For the record, I am too.” He places a kiss, softly, on my lips.


	5. Timmy

I remember riding with my parents on a highway somewhere.

We were in the old Chevrolet with the sticky seats when the weather got too hot. I’d roll the window down, let the wind blast me in the face. And my parents would be in the front, radio low and rumbling, exchanging the occasional word.

We were riding back from someplace when I was eight. Some kind of family picnic with mom’s side. There were cousins I only saw once a year, all of them either too old to want anything to do with me or too little for me to deal with. So I sat underneath the picnic table and picked at the grass. I judged my relatives by their legs and shoes — _pointy shoes and knobby knees = a secret wizard; round shoes and fat ankles = a pumpkin farmer_ — and I watched ants collect on lost hamburger buns and spilled bits of chicken aspic and lost the time, the minutes, the hours.

Then the sun was fading, it was time to go, and there were car doors slamming. We rode home while the sun was setting. I turned to the window to look. When I saw it, I thought it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. It quite possibly was since I was eight. The sky and the clouds were lit with these pinks and yellows, the mountains in the background were rolling blue. I couldn’t stop staring at it. Had it been a pool of water, I would have dunked my head in, full immersion. I turned around in the seat and looked out the back, watching and watching and watching, afraid I’d never see anything like that ever again. Afraid I’d never feel like it made me feel again. And it made me feel this profound loss, this beautiful tragedy that is endings. I knew with full force that the day was over. Well and truly over.

How could I have been so foolish earlier? I thought. How could I have tossed out all those minutes under that picnic table like coins? It’s all over now. This day. It will never come again.

Then, like sunsets are apt to do, it ended and it was nighttime. I mourned it. I mourned the loss in my little heart all the way home, feeling sure I’d seen something in a way no one else ever had. But, I thought, at least I’d seared that image in my memory for all time. I felt sure I would always be able to close my eyes and conjure it up, over and over again.

If last night could’ve been like that sunset. If there was a way for me to watch it from outside of me, a way for me to become fully immersed, then I wouldn’t fear losing the feeling of it, the vision of it when I closed my eyes. Whatever else happens, I don’t want to forget this. I can’t forget this.

My hand was in his hand. My cock was in his hand. And his eyes, his lips, his hands were on me. I play it all over and over against the screen of my eyelids, setting up every detail, every sound, vivid Technicolor and Deluxe.

Even if it never happens again, even if it does, I want to remember it always. As the beautiful tragedy that is beginnings. And mourn the loss when twilight comes.

* * *

It takes him a minute to open the door.

I can tell by the humid air and Lifebuoy scent what he was doing. A cigarette dangles from the side of his mouth. I stick my thumbs in my belt loops and attempt to lean my shoulder against the door frame, but my shoulder slips, and I stand upright instead, taking him in on the evening after. Taking him in after a long day of waiting and waiting and waiting for it just to be evening already so I could see him.

But as he stands there in his unusually dim sitting room - despite it being sunny as shit outside - surveying me without a word, I begin to panic inwardly. The thought of him turning me away, the thought of him telling me to get lost kid, and having it all be over eats away at my insides as the seconds tick by.

Then, thankfully, _mercifully_ , he steps aside and gestures me in.

My gratitude is immense. _Immersed._

He goes and sits on his sofa. I go and sit next to him, our hips and knees touching. I wait for him to finish his cigarette, stub it out in the ashtray, then he turns to me. He looks at me for a long while, his gaze drifting. First my eyes, then my lips, then my eyes again.

“You really want to be here?”

I loop my arm through his and lay my chin on his shoulder.

He looks down at our touching knees; denim kissing denim. “You know, I was thinking. About what you said, your mom. Losing somebody the way you did, it can change you. Make you be and think how you ordinarily wouldn’t.”

He was thinking about me? I want to ask…was it all night? Just this morning? Just since I left last night/early this morning? I can’t have all the fun, though. I can’t be so greedy this soon.

“But I’m already ordinary.” I inform him. “I can’t be anymore ordinary.”

His eyes meet mine. “I’m just saying.” And then a faint smile. “You’re more than ordinary, pal.”

I shrug my untouched shoulder.

He sighs and looks across the sparsely covered coffee table. Aunt Amy’s coffee table is set with a vase of silk flowers, a stack of coasters, and two books she doesn’t like on the shelf. She says they’re specially meant for the coffee table. One is pictures of sculptures and the other is a sports almanac. Neither one of us ever looks at the almanac. I don’t think it’s been opened in years.

Armie’s coffee table is scuffed and scratched and has nothing on it but the ashtray. I decide I like it best.

“Look, I know how it is,” he says quietly. “When somebody close to you dies. It can make you not the person you were. Or make you want to be a person you shouldn’t.” He pauses, runs a thoughtful finger over the scruff on his cheek. “I lost my brother. Older brother. When I was a kid. He was, um…trampled by a horse.”

My elbow tightens around his. I lay my head on his shoulder.

“At first, he was paralyzed. His spine. He could talk and see and everything. Then he kept getting these headaches…” He pauses for a few seconds. I feel his head turn to me. “That kind of stuff, it can change you, you know?”

I think I know what he’s getting at. I think. I slip my fingers through his, caress his hand, an attempt to remind him of yesterday. And a modicum of comfort. I can’t believe he’s just told me something so personal. It doesn’t match him on the outside.

I can’t believe what’s just happened in the last day. A day of firsts for me. Ferris wheel, kettle corn, a kiss with tongue, and having someone else’s hand on my dick. I don’t know if he should know. It probably wasn’t hard to tell.

I lean forward to put my lips on the corner of his. I try to lean my head against his, but my glasses get in the way, bump his cheek, and I take them off.

His hand tightens against mine. “I don’t want you to think I expect things.”

I nuzzle my face in his neck, kiss him there.

For a few minutes, we stay that way. I feel the throb of his pulse against my nose, and there’s the faint scent of his aftershave with the orangey spice. I get a second of disbelief. Like here he is alive and breathing, this organism evolved. This man on the balcony. This specimen I watched from afar, and I can’t believe this is real. I can’t believe I get to sit here this close to him. I can’t believe he hasn’t told me to get lost yet, and so I pull my face away from his neck like a jolt. I put my glasses back on and let go of his hand and scoot over a tad. I know what I should expect.

I lay back on his sofa and consider asking him for a beer. I might be pushing my luck, but he takes the hand I just took away, plays with my fingers. I realize it was the hand I used last night. I got his rocks off with that hand. I got to taste it.

“Did you like it?” I blurt out.

He nods.

“It was okay?”

He nods again. Looks me in my face. “Did you?”

I smile. Feel my cheeks get warm.

His expression is serious, though. He doesn’t smile back.

“I don’t have a brother,” I say gently. “I’ve never had one. But I can imagine it would hurt to lose one.”

He lays back on the sofa beside me. I lay my head against his, until he turns, his lips brushing mine and I’m eager, opening my mouth to taste his kiss, and I didn’t think it would be any better than last night. I didn’t think it would feel different, but it does. The way he slows it, and it’s just his lips, kissing my top lip, my bottom lip, and I think I may never catch my breath.

And that’s fine. Fine.

Let me drown in him, in his very essence. Let me sink into the depths with him, pinned under his kiss, and what a way to go. Tell my family I’ll miss them. Except my father. Tell my Aunt I love her.

And tell the world I died happy.

* * *

I want to ask him if I can spend the night.

Problem is, I don’t want to stop kissing him to ask.

I don’t know how long it’s been now. Hours, maybe? His sitting room seems darker beyond my eyelids, his naked chest warm and hard with his soft downy hair brushing against me. Our legs and feet get tangled as we push away our pants and then our underpants. I hear them fall to the floor, as we press down into his sofa under a kiss that is strung together in one long thread that passes from me to him, and him to me, and circles us both. A thread that tugs and pulls, wound up tight, until my breastbone is flush against his, and I swear I can feel the thudding of his heart. And is it trying to get through? Is it trying to meet my own? Halfway?

A thread that’s tight-rope-walking, in and out of a needle, and he could string me along on it, lead me astray, and I’d follow him anywhere. As long as he met me. Halfway.

I know what I want. I don’t know if I’m supposed to ask, the polite thing to do, or if he’ll just let me. I slide a hand down between us and feel the wet tip of his cock. I was right, of course, he’s huge, bigger than me, and I have this strange sense of desire mixed with envy. As soon as my fingers are on him, he lets out this sigh, and I break our kiss so I can see his face.

He’s got his eyes squeezed shut and it’s because of me. He’s hard as a rock and it’s because of me. I take pride in it. I could be some gloating fool, except I’m melting underneath him. The heat of the evening and the heat of our bodies makes me sweat. There’s a thin sheen of it between us, making my skin stick to his skin, and can’t it just be this way? Who needs to eat? Who needs to sleep? When you’ve got him and he’s got me, and we’re not going anywhere.

We jerk each other for a time. My free arm is around him, my fingers clinging to the muscles on his back and they move in tandem with his arm, the one that’s touching me, stroking me until I’m about to go blind. Then he sort of takes over, takes both of us in his one hand, and that’s something that evokes a sound from me I don’t even recognize. I clamp my hand over my mouth. I want to look at him, right in his sky-blue eyes, to see what I’ll find there, but I’m going to come. I’m such an amateur; such a gloating fool.

My cock twitches in his hand, and I see nothing but white. I catch my voice in my throat, afraid of the sound I’ll make, afraid of what it will reveal about me. Then I feel his lips on mine, kissing me hard, and my come spilling between us. A handful of seconds pass before he grunts and I feel him coming, too, warm and sticky all over my sweating skin. I swear, all life on earth has died out, gone to Mars on a flying saucer, except for me and him. I swear, it’s all gone. We’ll walk out into deserted streets, if we can ever bring ourselves to leave this place at all, and find we’ve been gifted this world to have all to ourselves. I swear, it’s got to be true.

He rests his head against mine as our panting breaths slow. When I open my eyes, I see he’s looking at me, watching my face. Heat blooms over my cheeks. I feel like a ghost, transparent, and moving through his walls. I dart my eyes away from his, focus on his earlobe, but he gently touches my chin, pulling my gaze back to him.

There’s a secret there. Something tender and fragile. I put a finger to his lips as if I’m shushing him, when he’s saying nothing at all, not with his mouth at least. And then I close my eyes and listen to his breaths slow in my ear, feel his sweat cool on my skin, and somewhere far off there’s the sound of a train whistle. Low and lonely and distant, and I feel a tear at the corner of my eye.

I mourn for its loneliness for I am not. I wish all things could be like me in this moment: safe, and covered, and found.

* * *

I slide the patio door closed, carefully and quietly.

The television is on, and I hear Aunt Amy getting up from the sofa and turning the knob. She appears in the kitchen doorway, Pepto-pink curlers in her hair wrapped in a pink net, nightgown brushing against her knees, also Pepto-pink.

I freeze behind the table, hoping she doesn’t come too close or turn on the kitchen light. I’m sure his scent is all over me. His come is still on me. I wouldn’t let him clean it off. And do I look like I just tumbled with the fella next door? I did my best. Smoothed out my hair, cleaned my glasses, and made sure my shirt wasn’t buttoned up crooked.

But Aunt Amy doesn’t move closer or turn on any lights. She simply crosses her arms. “I don’t mind if you stay out late, Timmy. But you need to tell me.”

I nod, then feel that mule-kick of defiance. “I’m almost twenty. I shouldn’t have to tell anyone anything.”

Her eyes narrow in the same way pops’ eyes do, and I feel a prickle on the back of my neck.

I see her jaw clench and unclench. “Yes, that’s true. You’re an adult. But this is _my_ home. It’s not much to ask, really.”

I glance down at the tops of my shoes. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Just leave a note or something. All right?”

“All right.”

She looks me over and if she can tell anything, she doesn’t say. “I’m going to bed. Good night.”

“Night.”

I stand there while I listen to her go upstairs, down the hall, her bedroom door close. I turn to look out the patio door to see if maybe he’s looking out his window, smoking on his balcony, but his lights are off.

I didn’t ask him, after all.

I thought he’d invite me, suggest it, but I guess because he’s got work tomorrow. And Aunt Amy’s got work tomorrow. Everyone’s a functioning member of society except me, earning their keep, and I waste away my days, just waiting. I don’t even know what for. I could do better than this.

But I am in limbo. A perpetual almost. I’m straddling the border of one decade into another. One foot in responsibility and the other in carelessness. There’s the slightest whisper from my conscience about how maybe, maybe, I should consider getting a job and paying Aunt Amy rent. Maybe I ought to act like the man I so desperately want to be, that I so desperately want someone to defend, that I so desperately want someone to say that they’re on my side, in my corner, and that I am their first choice.

I get in the shower, and a hot stream washes him away, where his come dried on my stomach, where I got his orangey spice and cigarettes on my clothes and in my hair, where I’m dazed in the steam because even though I’ll see him tomorrow, I feel let down and as if someone gave me a gift and promptly took it back.

It feels like the most unnatural thing in the world: to be with him and then go to sleep alone.

This doesn’t bode well, does it?

I fall onto my grandmother’s quilt, a towel around me, and realize this does not bode well indeed. If I don’t watch it, I’ll be like Grantaire, a drunk and _frightfully_ ugly, following Enjolras into oblivion. Before I can think better of it, I reach under my bed for my book and flip through it, worn pages bending until I find the first mentioning of Grantaire. I’m almost feverish as I read. He’s suddenly more important to me than Marius, than Javert, than Jean Valjean.

Because Grantaire was a leaf in the wind for the longest time, a real lush, but in the end he chose Enjolras first. In the end he was on his side, in his corner, and if that isn’t love, I don’t know what is.

So they died together, hand-in-hand.

And if that isn’t love, I don’t know what is.

* * *

I don’t want to be rude.

I try not to rush through my dinner, and I compliment Aunt Amy’s Jell-O mold. I try to be more pleasant and pretend as if I’m not listening for his motorcycle. And although I sense there’s something she’s withholding, I try to ignore that, act as if this is just another dinner I have to get through before I can walk out those patio doors and right into his arms.

And when I’m ready to do just that, eaten the last spoonful of ice cream, pushing away from the kitchen table, she reaches across and stops me.

“Timmy.” She puts her big man-hand over my wrist. “Can you hold on a minute?”

“Sure,” I mumble, and glance longingly to Armie’s apartment. I haven’t heard the Triumph yet, but it always seems like he’s there, even when he’s not. As if he leaves behind a piece of himself in a cloud of orangey spice and cigarettes to watch over me.

Aunt Amy irritatingly takes her time. She removes our ice cream bowls, rinses them in the sink. She sponges at some crumbs on the counter. She folds the dish towel and opens a drawer. She takes out an envelope, smooths her skirt underneath her as she sits, and pushes the envelope over to me.

My heart is in my throat. It’s typed out nice and neat, my name and Aunt Amy’s address, and I recognize the ‘e’ that drops a little bit lower than the rest of the letters. I remember the sound of my mother on her Olympia, mostly before the cancer and sometimes after, when she was feeling okay. The terse pecks of the keys that echoed in every room of the house, even when I shut my bedroom door. She always typed her letters, saying her penmanship wasn’t the best, but I always liked her handwriting. The way she looped her ‘o’ and the flowy stem of the ‘y’, especially when she was writing out my name. On a birthday card, kneeling beside me, her bracelets silver and her rings gold. She smelled like springtime, lilacs and honeysuckle.

I blink hard, as if that will make the envelope go away. It’s as if his face is staring back at me in each hard line of the letters. Impaled on the points of the M; his thick set jaw hidden in the T. Pops couldn’t ever type to save his life. His secretary did it all, it’s how he met my mother after all, so they’d always say, so I can picture him hunched over the Olympia, scowling, index fingers poking and pecking, and then pasting the green-tinged postage stamp with a trio of Boy Scouts, honorable and true.

I feel as if I’ve just been knocked upside the head, a blow that’s left me reeling. I push back from the table and my chair makes a god-awful screech.

“You don’t have to read it now,” Aunt Amy begins. “But —”

“Throw it away —”

“You can just hold on to it —”

“When did he —when did it come, huh? When did —”

“— and you can write him later. Or not at all. But at the very least —”

“I don’t want to.” I stand on shaking legs. “I don’t want to read it.”

Her voice is soft, pensive. “Don’t you think you owe him that? At the very least?”

“I don’t owe him shit!”

I don’t know if it’s the volume of my voice or the swearing that makes her face redden. Probably both. I unclench my fists. Push up my glasses. I open my mouth to stumble through an apology that doesn’t want to come out, but I hear his Triumph, the low _vroom_ of it coming closer.

Aunt Amy plucks the envelope up from the table. She takes it over to the drawer and puts it back. She pushes it closed, her fingers lingering on the handle. “You can just write him back to tell him his letters aren’t welcome, Timmy. If that’s what you want.”

“I don’t want your advice.”

I know the sting of betrayal I’m feeling is false. And that’s the thing, really and truly: if somebody was on my side, my defender, and in my corner, I’d find them suspicious. I’m not at all careful about what I wish for.

The engine stops. For a few minutes, we both stand in the kitchen, wordless and expectant. A gust of wind comes through her yard and the sunny evening is getting darker as storm clouds roll in just in the nick of time.

“I’ll be back late,” I tell her. “Real late.”

And then I’m out the door, fat rain drops falling, and my feet fumbling forward.

* * *

He lets me into his bedroom.

I’d gotten a few glances of it from his sitting room. I was just waiting. I figured he’d make me wait, because it’s the most intimate of places. Anyone’s bedroom would be, really, but it’s here he sleeps. It’s here he’s made himself come. It’s here he’s at his most vulnerable, and I tour it like a room in a museum. I circle around a small rectangle of a space, around his bed - nightstand on one side, closet door on the other - with a chest of drawers against one wall, a painting of a sailboat on another, a little window, and the door to his bathroom.

He watches me from the doorway, arms braced against the frame. I expect him to tell me any minute that his bed was the very bed some long dead General slept in during some long dead war. Or that the painting of the sailboat was the very sailboat that Captain Something Or Other sailed on when he went on his Last Great Voyage.

Instead, he crawls onto his bed, lays on his side, head propped up on his elbow. I toe off my shoes and mirror his posture.

He looks at me for a long moment before he says, “You okay?”

I run a hand over his bedspread. Deep blue and manly, just a shade darker than his eyes. I nod.

“You sure?” He hooks a foot around mine.

I scoot closer to him till we’re almost nose to nose. “It was a long day.”

“I’ll say.”

“And it’s raining.”

“Sure is.”

I slip my fingers into the waistband of his jeans. His eyes roam all over my face as if he’s reading me. As if I blink and breathe in words and phrases. Sometimes I wish I did, and he could know me, with little effort on my part. He could be the only one.

“I want to take you somewhere this weekend.” His lips brush over my forehead. “Is that okay?”

I nod.

“Your Aunt won’t mind?”

I shake my head and when his gaze meets mine, I roll my eyes. “I’m almost twenty. She can’t tell me what to do.”

“Sure. I know that.”

“I’m old enough, you know. I can do whatever I want. Why does everybody always think I’m some kid? Just some stupid kid.”

My fingers tighten in his waistband, and he slides a hand over my shoulder, squeezing. “I didn’t say that. I don’t even think that.” He tries to catch my eyes, but I won’t let him. “What’s wrong, pal? Tell me.”

I don’t want to do this. I’m in his bedroom, on his bed. It’s trust, it’s intimate. I don’t want to let him down or give him regrets. So, I lie and tell him it’s nothing, there’s nothing, and I kiss him deep so he believes me. So that he believes there’s nothing, really just nothing at all, except me and him.

I can make him believe. I’m good at distorting reality.

* * *

We undress each other like we’ve done it a thousand times.

He opens the window a crack. Pulls down the shade. There’s the sound of thunder, a low drum roll, and the shade billows out like a sail from the rain-cooled air. I kiss down his naked abdomen, hairs tickling my chin on my approach, a path to another first. It seems like he wants to say something, but I don’t want to listen. I want to give him something to mark this occasion. I push away any thoughts that convince me otherwise.

I don’t want to do it wrong, so I grasp the base of his cock, wrap my fingers around, lick the drops of pre-come off the tip, and take him in my mouth. I do it so sudden, his stomach muscles jerk and he gasps. I’m mindful of my teeth, and then I don’t know what to do for a minute. I didn’t think too far beyond the first move. My tongue flattens out and I pull off and take him back in, once or twice, until I can find a pace. I close my eyes and listen, hoping he warns me. I want to swallow him so bad, but I don’t want to make a fool out of myself.

It’s probably too late for that anyway.

I feel the humid breeze coming in from the window, smell the scent of heated flesh, and it’s all so erotic. It’s all so earthy, deep soil and rainwater, I forget who I am for a few seconds. I reach my free hand up his body to take hold of his. I don’t think twice about it.

His fingertips brush against mine, but then his fingers are in my hair, tugging. And then it’s like I’ve done too much. He’s in my mouth, and it’s the closest thing, and I’m afraid I’m not pleasing him enough. I’m not doing it right. So I make a sound and make a mistake. I look up to see him watching me, and I pull off him and turn my face to the window, swipe my fingers across my lips.

He sits up, perplexed.

“Don’t watch me.” I lick my lips. “I don’t want you to watch me.”

A pause. “Okay.”

“Not - not yet.”

Another pause. “Okay. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry, I…,” I feel the sting in my eyes, and I’m so mad. I’m going to ruin this.

He reaches for me. “Hey.”

I blink and hot tears just fall down my cheeks, and I’m so mad I can see the sharp points of an M. _I’m ruining this._

“Hey.” He pulls me into his arms.

“I’m sorry.” I repeat it. Over and over.

“It’s okay.” He repeats it. Over and over.

When a few minutes pass, and I’ve stopped shaking, I let out a harsh laugh. I avoid his concerned gaze. “I guess I should go.”

I start to reach for my glasses, my clothes, when he places his hand on my bare chest, stilling me. “Stay the night.”

I pause. “Why?”

“I want you to.”

“Why?”

“Come here.”

He lays me down beside him, and in the late evening light everything looks as if we’ve just come home and still need to turn on the lamps. It’s irresponsible, to just let it get dark, and not fight it off. It’s lazy. It’s the ending of a day that will never come again, and I don’t want to get all choked up about it right this minute. Okay? Can it just not happen right now? Enough of this sappy shit.

“I don’t want to ruin this,” I say.

“Ruin what?”

“ _This_. Tonight. Later. Anything.”

He pulls me into his arms and we just lay there until it’s completely dark. Until there’s the sound of moms calling for kids and buzzing insects. Until there’s the sound of distant cars going home, and the sound of bicycle wheels on gravel. Until the streetlight makes his window shade look like a glowing phantom from the inside.

Until he turns to me, his mouth against the crown of my head, and tells me, “You think you could ruin this, pal?”

I think maybe I could. And then I think maybe it could always be like this. Just like this. Not me crying like an idiot. Not me being stupid. Not me having any other problems. But it could always be him and me in his bed. It could always be him and me staying the night. I get just a peek from behind the curtain. A glimmer.

And so I kiss the center of his throat, look him in those azure eyes, and tell him, “I’ll give it my best shot.”


End file.
